


Illogical, even.

by magikspell



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Character Study, First Kiss, First Time, Grey-Asexuality, Growing Up, M/M, Romance, Sherlock-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-02
Updated: 2013-12-02
Packaged: 2018-01-03 05:23:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1066258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magikspell/pseuds/magikspell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five reasons Sherlock never believed in love and one reason he does now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Illogical, even.

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [论爱情的复杂与不合理](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3403811) by [RictinaM_Z](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RictinaM_Z/pseuds/RictinaM_Z)



> Please note that there is a depiction of sex between uni-aged Sherlock and Victor Trevor. I didn't include that in the tags above so as not to mislead, as this is very much a johnlock fic.
> 
> Hope you enjoy! Thanks so much for reading.

_**five.**_

Shoe to chair leg. _Thunk._

Shoe to chair leg. _Thunk._

Leg swings out, knee like a loose hinge, shoe sole to floor. _Smack._

"Mycroft."

[Shoe to chair leg. Shoe to chair leg. _Thunk. Thunk._ ]

" _My_ croft."

Silence.

Sherlock drops his pencil into the inner spine of his entomology primer [an old schoolbook of Father's] and pushes away from the child-sized desk situated in the corner of the library. He stands, wipes graphite-stained fingers on his trousers, and turns to peer round the room, puff of wild, dark curls bouncing.

"Mycroft?" He calls his brother's name twice more, to no avail, before exiting the library.

Sherlock checks nearly all rooms in the east wing, carefully turning knobs, creaking open doors, and poking his little head in with a whispered, " _My_?" 

Now, where _did_ he go? He was just there, wasn't he, with Sherlock, curled up in a chair by the hearth in the library with a well-worn copy of _Moby Dick_ , pointedly correcting his baby brother's pronunciations of "arachnocampa" and "pyrochroa" between drinks of warm cider.

Sherlock shuffles down the main corridor, down what seems, to a small child, like kilometres upon kilometres of cold, unfriendly wooden floors, ancestral portraits, and hanging tapestries, and pauses when he reaches the swinging door leading to the casual dining room.

There's shuffling coming from inside, a rhythmic rustle, and Sherlock purses his lips as he places a small palm against polished wood.

" _My_ cr--" he starts, pushing open the door, expecting to find his twelve-year-old brother sat at the table with a plate of biscuits he'd weaseled out of Mrs Wilson. What he finds is not that at all.

Father is there, bent over Sherlock's young nanny, Helene, who's laid back on the table with her skirt bunched up around her hips and her blouse unbuttoned to her navel.

"Father," Sherlock says [ _says_ , not gasps, not shouts].

There is a startled cry, a rush of frenzied movement, skirt down, trousers up, tiny little pearly buttons back through tiny little holes. 

Flushed cheeks, distressed faces, strong palms pressed down on small shoulders.

" _Sherlock_ ," Father says, stooping, leaning in close, his voice scolding, unkind, frightening. "Sherlock, you are not to tell. _Never_ to tell."

Sherlock swallows, a squeaky swallow, and chews on the skin of his inner cheeks as he watches his father's eyes flash.

"Where is Mycroft?" He asks after a moment, straightening his spine, lifting his shoulders. "I should like to go collecting."

....

"Come along, Mycroft," Sherlock says, holding out his hand to his brother, whom he had found warming himself in the garden. 

After much grumbling, Mycroft takes his young brother by the hand, and together, they collect Sherlock's butterfly jar and net and set off for the meadow.

"Do Mummy and Father still love each other?" Sherlock asks, squeezing Mycroft's warm, chubby palm once they reach the crest of a hill, the hill on which the Holmeses had often picnicked, where Sherlock used to toddle around, all smart baby boy clothing, bare feet, and curls, where Mycroft would blush and turn away when Mummy and Father would kiss and tease.

Mycroft doesn't answer right away, choosing instead to twist up his lips and squeeze at the small hand he holds like a precious, dreadful thing.

"My?"

"As much as they're able, I suppose," the older boy finally replies, releasing Sherlock's hand and wiping their shared sweat on the leg of his trousers.

Sherlock swings his butterfly net in an experimental arc and observes the way the net balloons up like a windsock. "That's quite a lot, isn't it?"

"Perhaps," Mycroft answers. He uncaps the jar lodged under his arm and turns to his brother. "Shall we begin?"

....

The brothers spend an hour chasing butterflies, running through the grass in bare feet, muddying the hems of their trousers and dampening their shirts in sweat. Sherlock's curls stick to his forehead in a tangled mess, and Mycroft sweeps them back with his palm, smiling faintly at the colour in the boy's cheeks and the little whistle his mouth makes when his breath flows through the space left by a missing front tooth.

"We've done well," Sherlock says, tapping at the jar, where four small butterflies flutter about. "Shall we show them to Mummy when she returns?" 

"You know it upsets her when you capture insects."

"I shan't squash them this time." Sherlock presses his little nose against the glass, studying. _Butterfly. Rhopalocera. Ro-pa-la-cer-ah. Colour: Blue? Purple? Violet, like Mummy's favourite gown, like Helene's blouse._

"You'll have to tend to them if you want to show Mummy," Mycroft says, swiping sweat from his brow. "She won't return from Auntie's for hours yet."

Sherlock nods, more to himself than to his brother. "Mycroft?" he says, eyes scanning the dainty, dusty little wings.

"Yes?"

"Do mummies and fathers only love each other?"

"I suppose they love their children," Mycroft answers after a period of contemplative silence. "Why do you ask, Sherlock?"

"What if a father loves another person like he's supposed to love a mummy?"

Mycroft freezes, breath leaving his body in a great puff. He swings the butterfly net in a low circle, grasping the wooden stick like the handle of an umbrella. "That isn't love, Sherlock," he says quietly, not daring to look at his brother. He holds out his hand. "Come along."

Sherlock ignores him, eyes still fixed on the butterflies, nose still pressed to the glass. "What is it, then?"

"Not love."

"What is love?"

Mycroft drops his hand. He watches his baby brother, just five years old, nearly six--just new, really, brand new, and already too smart and too odd and entirely unable to be protected. 

"Complicated," he says.

Sherlock lowers the large jar and holds it tightly to his belly, arms wrapped around it in a hug. "Mummy and Father love each other quite a lot, don't they?" he asks for the second time, frowning, voice… _less_ this time, somehow.

Mycroft sighs. He purses his lips.

What a small little thing. A small little unprotected thing. A dangerous thing.

He crouches beside his brother and braces himself. "Climb on," he says, motioning towards his back. "Shall I carry you?"

What a small little thing. A three stone weight. Hands clasped like a prayer around Mycroft's neck.

"Will you run?" Sherlock asks, shifting, trying to peer over his brother's shoulder.

"Yes. I'll run."

...........

_**ten.**_

It's such a horrible, _hateful_ thing, crying, precisely when you're not meant to, when you bite your tongue, the insides of your cheeks, breathing deeply, trying [unsuccessfully] to keep tears at bay. It's worse when you're ten years old and the tears have not come due to an injury, to a twisted ankle, to a punch in the nose, to blood, but due to nothing at all, really.

"You're awful, you are," Henry Prouse says, pressing Sherlock against the wall. "You 'aven't got a bit of sense, a bit of _decency_. You're just a _stupid_ li'l boy that no one likes. No one at all."

Sherlock presses his lips together. He feels his eyes beginning to fill, and it's dreadful, _dreadful_ , because Sherlock _isn't_ stupid and Henry Prouse is eleven and tall and blond and the top of his class and once retrieved Sherlock's rucksack when Jack Fincher threw it down the stairwell, and he's _kind_ , and he smiled brilliantly when he asked Sherlock how he knew the maths teacher fancied the art teacher, and his grandmother _did_ die of cancer, and he _did_ go to her funeral that morning, and he _did_ drop to his knees in the dirt and scream and cry and beat at the coffin. Sherlock wasn't wrong; he was _right_.

"I was _right_ ," he says, willing his body to absorb the tears in his eyes. 

Henry's face changes rapidly from an expression of nascent anger to fury. He places the warm palm of his hand to Sherlock's forehead and presses the smaller boy's head to the wall. "You're a _freak_ ," he spits.

With one last firm push, a jarring push, one that pains Sherlock's head, the back of his skull, Henry draws back and leaves to join his friends, his kind, decent friends, who are watching from afar.

Sherlock's crying a little, and he can't help it. The tears are just _there_ , clouding his vision and making the dips under his eyes wet. 

Why must he be so emotional? _Why?_ Why must he? Mycroft would think him silly.

With a quick swipe of his sleeve, he clears his face and shoves away from the wall.

....

That weekend, he returns home for short leave and immediately rids himself of his horrible school uniform with the scratchy jumper and tie. He tosses his rucksack on the floor and kicks it under the bed.

Mummy comes in once he's dressed in more comfortable trousers and a casual shirt and clasps her hands in front of her abdomen. " _Darling_ ," she says, smiling warmly. "How I've missed you."

Sherlock walks over and kisses her cheek.

"You must tell me about school," Mummy says, placing a hand on her son's shoulder to keep him close and leaning down to breathe into his hair. She presses a kiss there, just one, unknowingly over the sore spot at the back of his skull. "I bet you've made lots of friends, my bright boy."

"Loads," Sherlock confirms, pulling away and walking over to the antique shelf where he keeps his puzzles. Fingering a Rubik's Cube, he absently tells Mummy of Henry, of the fun they have, of his kindness and brilliance. He feels her smile even though he refuses to look up at it. He knows that she worries, has always worried about him. But it's all right. He's fine. He's fantastic, in fact.

He gathers his framed pin board when Mummy leaves and examines his insect collection. Bees. Wasps. Moths and butterflies. He takes out his pocket magnifier and goes over each tiny wing, each dried, shrivelled, discoloured part, each broken leg and crooked antenna. Dreadful, they are. All of them. Horribly dead. 

Wonderful. Fascinating.

He studies the four violet butterflies grouped in the middle of his collection. Tiny and sweet, small things that fluttered about so happily in Sherlock's jar. Things that waited for Mummy, that eventually died of the wait, for Mummy dared not return to the cold, ancestral home when Mr Addams' bed was so warm.

"We'll not have friends, then, will we?" Sherlock asks his insects, setting down his magnifier. "Alone is kind. Alone protects us, doesn't it?"

...........

_**sixteen.**_

"Of _course_ he is." Sherlock hooks his finger through the handle of his mug of tepid tea and drags it in a slow circle. "Even _you_ can't be that utterly dim. Rumpled trousers, lipstick on the collar, a strategically placed love bite meant to escape notice. I'm certain a baboon of lower than average intellect could have worked this one out."

The girl [Tamara. Theresa. Tiffany?] purses her lips. "That's it, then? He's cheated."

"Mm, no." Sherlock takes a drink of tea and shakes his head. "He's cheat _ing_."

"You're sure? How can you be cer--" Teagan pauses, hands shaking as she clasps them on the table before her. "What am I to do now?"

Sherlock waves his hand around, dismissive. "Don't know and frankly don't care an awful lot. Drop him. Give him the…whatever it is you lot call it. That'll be five pounds. I've got to go." He stands, pulls on his coat, and yanks up his plastic display card [ _Consultations - £5_ ] from where it hangs over the edge of the café table.

The girl stammers so horribly _much_ as she digs about in her handbag and hands over the money. Sherlock hasn't the patience for such nonsense and rolls his eyes when she begins to _weep_.

"Thank you," Terri tells him anyway, sniffing wetly as she closes her bag.

"All right," Sherlock answers rather awkwardly and swans out.

As he waits for a cab on the kerb outside, Sherlock lights up a fag with his monogramed Zippo lighter [Birthday. Mycroft.] and puffs away, savouring the delicious warmth, the burn of the smoke as it fills his lungs and later escapes through his nasal passages. 

_Sex_. What a stupid thing it is.

Stuart Harris. Seventeen, handsome, swimmer, sixth form college, regularly sleeps with four, no, _five_ young women, one of whom passed along the herpes virus that was later gifted to Tara, as evidenced by the blister forming on her bottom lip.

[Oh, the joys of giving. Oh, the wonders, the pleasures of sexual activity.]

He thinks about it sometimes, obviously. _Of course_ he does. Sherlock's sixteen. He's on the last leg of puberty, puberty that _wrecked_ him, by the way, that turned the tap of his body from cool to scalding hot overnight, that changed his appearance and voice and flooded him with all the distasteful, detestable, proverbial raging hormones. 

On occasion he'll feel…something, an uncontrollable something warm inside, a stirring. It's biology. Irrespective of his mind, his body desires. Book chapters on reproduction and anatomy, journal articles on sexual motivations, written discussions of intercourse and orgasms and seminal fluids are read differently now, against Sherlock's will. His palms sweat and his cheeks colour and heat, and _god_ , the dreadful erections, the resulting shameful masturbation to the words "thrusting," "climax," "muscle contractions," and "ejaculation" paired with the labeled diagram [Figure 3.1: "Penile-Vaginal Intercourse"] in his human biology textbook. He feels nauseous afterwards as he cleans up with Kleenex purchased solely for wiping his nose after traipsing about in cold weather. 

For too long following, for an hour, sometimes, he's distracted and contemplative and stupidly _warm_ , and his notes and newspapers and theories and experiments are ignored, are forgot in favour of staring at the ceiling and half-wondering what it's like to be kissed and whether sex feels even better with a partner and half-chastising himself, wanting to slam his fist through his bedroom wall.

The problem is that he doesn't _want_ this. 

Sex has proved time and time again to be messy and unsanitary and distracting and downright _tedious_ , ultimately unsatisfactory and detrimental to all parties involved, resulting in sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancy, guilt, false attachment and illusions of _love_ and sentiment, which leads to Stuart Harris getting off with Subjects A-E and Tori _weeping_ to Sherlock in the middle of London in the middle of a horrible café, paying five pounds to hear what she knows already because maybe, _maybe_ it isn't true, maybe, _maybe_ love prevails, maybe it's real, maybe the sex meant something after all. 

Stupid, so very stupid. _Illogical_ , even. 

He's lucky he's alone, he thinks after returning home that night, thumbing through his textbook and ignoring the fact that the spine is extra-cracked, extra-pliable at around pages 128-131 ["The Sexual Response Cycle"]. He's got no one to pressure him, no sex-obsessed mates to bother him with accounts of experiences, of pulls and parties. 

Before he left school, Sherlock overheard a hall mate telling of Henry Prouse, of how he was spending his gap year in Manchester with his "friend" whom he was "absolutely not" shagging, only he'd been caught kissing him under the mistletoe at a Christmas party and somebody told somebody that they were spied holding hands in the park.

It's a relief to be free of it all. 

Sherlock closes his textbook and slides it under his bed, all the way to the back, by the wall, where he won't bother retrieving it. 

...........

_**twenty.**_

"You're lonely," he says, climbing onto Sherlock's bed and criss-crossing his long, thin legs with ease. He rolls up the sleeves of his pin-striped shirt and buttons the cuffs at his elbows. "Have always been, haven't you?"

"Alone." Sherlock pulls his own legs up to his chest and scoots back to sit against the wall. "There's a difference. To be lonely is to desire, to _require_ company. I find solitude efficient. Satisfactory."

"You can't mean that."

"Why can't I?"

Victor frowns as he touches Sherlock's bare ankle, wraps his fingers loosely around it and holds on. 

No one's touched Sherlock there before. Not _really_. Not since he was a small child with a sprain and an overprotective brother with chubby hands and soothing words. The skin of Victor's hand is fire to Sherlock's bones, and he nearly flinches, nearly jerks away from the contact.

....

Sherlock's first kiss is soft and warm, a fluttering of lips on his, palms splayed across his face, a light pressure and gentle suction causing a squeaky sound on the pull-back. 

"Was that your first?" Victor asks, smiling with kindness. He's rather beautiful, Sherlock thinks, would be considered such if one desired to think of people as beautiful, if one bothered to feel attraction. Victor's taller than Sherlock, lithe and golden-haired and cherub-curly, and he's well-dressed and studies biochemistry and speaks four languages and hums when Sherlock plays violin.

Sherlock feels shy with him sometimes, which is unusual and rather uncalled-for. He breathes out his mouth a slow stream of air and says nothing.

"I hope so," Victor says and tugs once at the collar of Sherlock's shirt. "Play me something? Something romantic."

Sherlock rolls his eyes. "That's awful, Victor, truly awful."

Victor smirks and goes to retrieve Sherlock's violin. "Did it work, though?"

....

After nearly a month of what he considers "allowing" the kissing--holding still when Victor seems adamant to taste his tongue and teeth, smiling a bit when he feels the press of a mouth against the base of his neck whilst examining mould spores in the science lab, and becoming appropriately breathless when late-night kisses turn to full-fledged snogs in the dark outside his hall of residence--Sherlock finds himself growing fond.

Sometimes he thinks he was wrong, perhaps wrong his entire life, thinks maybe company is preferable to being alone, especially on evenings when Victor helps him collect soil samples from around the university campus and then sits with him for hours whilst he analyses and catalogues. He thinks maybe he was wrong when Seb pokes fun at his deductions over breakfast and Victor calls the oaf an arsehole.

He especially thinks he was wrong when Victor unbuttons Sherlock's shirt and sucks at the skin above his navel until he sighs and yet doesn't push further, tells him it's all right, they won't do anything until he's ready, until he wants to.

Sherlock still finds sex for sex's sake a pathetic pastime, a waste of energy and the catalyst for becoming a slave to one's body [to one's transport, really, for the body's nothing but the weak, bothersome vehicle carting around that which rests in the mind], but Victor's kind to him, and he's handsome, and when they're sharing a cigarette on the fire escape and Victor reads to him in French, Sherlock finds himself wanting to give him pleasure.

....

Undressing before another person embarrasses Sherlock more than he would have expected. He's got just a human body, after all, a normal human body with what he's determined to be average proportions, amounts of hair, and muscle definition.

Once naked, he stands rather pink-faced before Victor, who stares at him, unashamed, eyes raking up and down the planes of his body before settling on his mouth, the first place he kisses.

Sherlock gasps when Victor shoves him down on the bed and climbs on top, pressing their bare chests together, aligning their hips, bones to bones, skin to skin. It's… Sherlock doesn't know what it is. He closes his eyes and places his palms flat against Victor's shoulder blades and feels terribly overwhelmed by it all.

_Lips: at his neck, slightly open, wet on the inside, dry on the outside, bottom lip chapped and split from the cold weather and too much nervous biting during exams. He could really do with some lip balm, perhaps the medicated kind in order to promote healing, as the skin is really rather rough and it likely hurts quite a lot._

Victor shifts his hips and…

_Penis: fully erect, resting in the crease of Sherlock's thigh, quite warm, possibly wet at the tip, suggestive of the secretion of a very small amount of pre-ejaculatulatory fluid, though it could also be sweat._

_Pubic hair: damp, bristly, clearly recently trimmed, meaning Victor is either quite meticulous about grooming or he groomed specifically for this occasion, meaning he was expecting to take Sherlock to bed tonight, possibly suggesting that Sherlock had given off signals that a progression past heavy petting was permissible. **Were** there signals? Did Victor know that Sherlock had begun to wonder about the size of his penis and about the colour of his pubic hair and about how his face looks when he reaches the peak of sexual excitement? How could he know? What were the indicators? What--_

A hand _[sweaty, very warm, smooth, minimal callouses]_ slides down to Sherlock's waist and grips, strokes. Sherlock opens his eyes and sees Victor looking down at him, a puzzled, yet fond, expression on his face. 

"All right?" He presses a kiss to Sherlock's nodding head. "Tell me if you want to stop."

He should do something, shouldn't he? That is the purpose of sex, after all. Doing something. He grasps Victor by the sides of his head and pulls him down for a hard kiss.

....

Victor comes quicker than Sherlock would have thought considering his level of experience [he's deduced at least eight previous sexual partners, both relationships and pulls] and masturbatory habits [sometimes multiple times per day]. 

They've arranged themselves on their sides, facing each other in a bit of an awkward twist, and Victor holds the two of them in his right hand and strokes rapidly.

Sherlock watches his face with interest and curiosity, presses their foreheads together so as to better hear the heavy sighs escaping Victor's mouth, the little _haaaahs_ , both voiced and unvoiced, that come more and more frequently the closer he gets to completion. He bites his lip for a moment when Victor's breathing stutters, when he squeezes his eyes shut tight and gives a gentle jerk of his hips. 

"Ah, _ffff_ u--uh," Victor groans, tightening his left arm around Sherlock's back and pulling him closer. "Almost…there?" He asks, breathless.

Sherlock nods a bit and wonders if he should be making noise. Is it customary? Does one moan for one's partner? Is it supposed to be particularly arousing?

He feels somewhat stupid, but he _mmmm_ s once, twice, when Victor trains his eyes on his face and stares at him half-lidded, drunken. "Do you like it?" Victor asks with a heavy exhale.

"Yes," Sherlock says immediately, thrusting his hips [one, two, three] in time with Victor's strokes. He's getting a bit chafed, he thinks, his penis feeling less tingly, the nice, warm feeling at the sensitive tip, in his testicles, somewhere inside him [prostate gland?] somewhat dulled, more of a whisper of pleasure than a shout. _Skin rubbing against skin. Soft foreskin, rougher palm. Stroke. Stroke. Stroke. StrokeStrokeStrokeStrokeStroke._

Victor releases Sherlock's penis in favour of only his own and pulls rapidly, hand a whir between their bodies. His face contorts, mouth opening wide, eyes squeezing shut as he orgasms, aiming his penis and coming in three rushes of warm, ropy fluid onto Sherlock's quivering belly.

He murmurs "fuck" twice and groans. " _God_."

Sherlock doesn't quite know what to do. Victor will be experiencing a rush of endorphins now, meant to produce a sense of calm, euphoria, and affection, and he'll be entering into a refractory period in which he will find it difficult to achieve an erection [likely, given his age, for the next twenty to sixty minutes].

He takes himself in hand and strokes a few times, gently. Is he meant to finish himself off? Should he come on Victor's abdomen? 

"Come on," Victor whispers, panting.

Yes?

Sherlock closes his eyes and works himself in his sweaty palm. 

"Tell me when you're coming," Victor says, speech lazy, a slow drawl. Sherlock feels a sticky hand press against his abdomen and stroke at the semen there, rubbing the fluid into his skin. _Unsanitary. Itchy. Will cause a crusty film._

He masturbates, thinking of the look on Victor's face when he came, thinking of orgasm, of that sharp, hot burn-tingle-quiver right at the peak of climax.

"Are you close?" Victor asks, hand trailing down to Sherlock's hip, around to his testicles. 

Sherlock doesn't answer. He finds it difficult to concentrate enough to advance past moderate-level arousal, focussed instead on the stroke of Victor's hand, the texture of his palm versus the texture of his fingertips, on the skin-tightening sensation of semen drying against his stomach, on the slight discomfort of chafing, on the fact that he's being watched, now, that Victor's breathing loudly, still, watching Sherlock masturbate, that he's likely on an oxytocin high, that he may be feeling lethargic, that his heart-rate is still elevated but beginning to lower minute by minute.

"Tell me when you're close."

Sherlock sighs after a while and releases himself once his strokes become painful. Opening his eyes, he leans in and presses a warm, slow kiss to Victor's lips.

"Are you all right?" Victor asks, running his palm up from Sherlock's testicles to his slowly deflating penis. "Do you want me to blow you?"

Sherlock pauses for a moment, considering, but then shakes his head. "Next time," he says, throwing his arm around Victor's slim waist.

....

"Do you come when you wank?" Victor asks him the next morning, following a blowjob that resulted in nothing but mutual frustration.

"Yes," Sherlock replies as he pulls on a pair of trousers, seeing no point in lying.

"Easily?"

"Usually."

....

"What turns you on?"

"I don't know."

....

"Are you almost there? Tell me when you're almost there."

....

"Come on. _Come for me_. Come for me."

....

Sherlock likes Victor's smile, the way his teeth shine in the sunlight when the two of them are smoking on a park bench and Sherlock deduces a passerby's secret fetish.

....

"Fuck, fuck, _fuck_." Victor comes across Sherlock's chest, crouching over him and pulsing out, warm and wet.

Afterwards, he sighs and leans down, kissing at Sherlock's mouth, his neck, behind his ear, and rubbing his palm absently over his neglected erection. 

"Do you feel good, at least?" he asks, giving Sherlock's penis a squeeze and then running his fingers through his pubic hair.

No more trying, then. 

Sherlock nods, cheeks colouring, and kisses him.

....

_Sex has proved time and time again to be messy and unsanitary and distracting and downright **tedious** , ultimately unsatisfactory and detrimental to all parties involved, resulting in ~~sexually transmitted diseases~~ , ~~unwanted pregnancy~~ , guilt, false attachment and illusions of ~~_love_ and~~ sentiment, which leads to ~~Stuart Harris~~ _ Victor Trevor _getting off with ~~Subjects A-E~~ _ Sebastian Wilkes _and ~~Tori~~ _ Sherlock Holmes _~~weeping to Sherlock in the middle of London in the middle of a horrible cafe, paying five pounds to hear what she knows already because maybe, _maybe_ it isn't true, maybe, _maybe_ love prevails, maybe it's real, maybe the sex meant something~~ _ becoming angry with himself, thinking himself mad, even, hating that he'd thought he was maybe, possibly, wrong, that he'd gotten lost, that he'd been an idiot, that he should have known better because he was right, after all, because he's always right. Because sex, because sentiment, is 

_Stupid, so very stupid. **Illogical** , even. _

...........

_**twenty-seven.**_

The overhead lights beat down on his head like a thousand scalding hammers, heating his cheeks and the bridge of his nose, moistening his hairline with sweat. It's entirely too hot, entirely too uncomfortable, not to mention boring, painful, and more than a bit embarrassing. Sherlock exhales loudly.

" _Behave_ ," Mycroft scolds, tapping at his brother's shin with the tip of his umbrella.

"I _am_ behaving. I'm perfectly civil, perfectly-- [ _Baby, can't you see / I'm calling / A guy like you / Should wear a warning_ ] Oh, _hell_ , do people really enjoy this utter rubbish?" 

Queue the wedding reception's shouting, dancing drunks: "With a taste of your lips, I'm on a riiiiide. You're _toxic_ , I'm slipping under."

Mycroft screws up his mouth and crosses his legs. "Even members of parliament-- _especially_ members of parliament, I should say--have… _questionable_ tastes."

Sherlock knocks back the remainder of his whiskey and slams his glass down on the table. "You've got approximately eight minutes, Mycroft. I'll not sit here all night, twiddling my thumbs whilst London's ' _best and brightest_ ' revel in their foolishness."

Mycroft nods gently towards a pair of men chatting by the door [armed, undercover, wired (one owner of three cats and a teething toddler, one quite _un_ happily married--no, engaged)]. "We're on a strict schedule."

"Then I suggest you reevaluate your schedule." Sherlock waves his hand around the room. "The longer this goes on, the drunker they get. The drunker they get, the more likely they are to put up a fight. Rip off the plaster, _brother dear_ ; we mustn't keep them waiting." He stands, sniffs, and adjusts his shirt and jacket.

Mycroft presses the side of his umbrella to Sherlock's knees, keeping him from the step he makes to take. "Where are we going, then?"

Sherlock rolls his eyes and groans. "Does His Most Excellent Majesty allow an unattended visit to the toilet? Or would he like to watch?"

The older man raises an eyebrow in challenge and grips the umbrella handle all the more tightly, presses it with increased force against his brother's legs.

Sherlock shifts away from the _ridiculous_ brolly and leans down into Mycroft's personal space. "Am I to submit to a drugs search each time I leave your presence? Shall I strip down to my pants?"

"Trust must be _earned_ , Sherlock."

Sherlock rolls his eyes, straightens, and turns in the direction of the loo. "There are few things I care less about than earning your _trust_ , Mycroft. I'll just have you know that I'll not be minded like a child."

....

He lights up a cigarette out on the large veranda and shuts his eyes on the inhale, slow exhale. A breeze carries away the smoke escaping his nose, the small space between his lips, and tousles his hair, lifting his unruly curls at the roots and pressing them backwards like the kind hand of a soothing friend.

A young man and woman are several metres away, leaned back against the railing and embracing, kissing, talking in a low murmur Sherlock must strain to overhear.

_They're dating, for months now, nearly engaged. The man feels he's very much in love, judging by his grasp about the woman's waist, the splay of his fingers against her dress, the way his mouth turns up, eyes flash when she smiles at him and kisses his chin. The woman's hands grip at his lapels, her knuckles are white, her feet, legs, knees are pressed tightly together, closing herself off to him, her lover. Not as invested, then. Cheating? Likely not, as her necklace, a diamond-encrusted heart, is well-worn, has several strands of hair caught in the back clasp where it catches in sleep-tangles. So: rarely, if ever, removed. But if not cheating, then what? Maybe she's growing tired of it. Maybe she's realized._

"Can't wait to marry you," the man says, sliding his hands up his lover's slim waist. "We'll have a party just like this one. _Allll_ the dancing. All the nonsense."

The woman laughs. "You'll have to ask me first, I should think. And I'll have to agree."

"Soon. Very, very soon."

"It's utter tripe, you know," Sherlock finds himself saying, crushing his half-smoked cigarette against a column. " _Love_. Sentiment."

The man starts, turns away from his girlfriend and faces Sherlock. "Excuse me?"

Sherlock sighs as if put-upon and drops the cigarette butt on the veranda floor. " _Oh_ , you'll be happy for months, maybe a year or two, but it won't _last_. Look at her eyes; the girl's _exhausted_ already. Knees are pressed together so tightly you'd need _machinery_ to get between them tonight. She's bored of you not, what, eight, _nine_ months into the relationship? And _your_ face whens she talks to you…" He closes his eyes and ambles forwards, shoves a hand in the pocket of his coat and shifts, causing the fabric to blouse out dramatically. "You're _over the moon_ for her, and she doesn't even…"

The hand comes from nowhere, palm slapping across Sherlock's left cheek, burning his skin like a white-hot iron, branding on him a pink, feminine print.

"You fucking _bastard_ ," the woman says, launching towards him, only to be held back by her lover. "You utter. fucking. _bastard_."

"I'm right," Sherlock says, holding the sleeve of his coat against the sharp sting on his face. "You _know_ I am, both of you."

"You're an arsehole. What _right_ have you got to--"

A hand grasps Sherlock's forearm, a hard, cold hand [no longer warm and sweaty, no longer chubby], and a voice clears. 

_"Come along."_

....

_"Will you run?"_

_"Yes. I'll run."_

....

"That's the prime minister's granddaughter," Mycroft says once they're back at the table, once he's got Sherlock fixed in a chair with a glass of water, once he's stared for too long into his eyes, checking.

Sherlock groans. "I don't care if it's the prime minister _herself_ , she--"

"She's got _cancer_ , Sherlock. She's dying."

Sherlock presses his lips firmly together, lost for a beat, eyes focussed straight ahead, unblinking.

A moment later, he shrugs. "All the more reason, then. The ending result is the same, if not worse." He looks over at Mycroft, who's sat by him, umbrella stretched across his lap. "You agree with me, you know. Always have."

"Leave off it, Sherlock."

"You know the same as I do." He takes a drink of water and grimaces. "Anyway." Pause. "Where's your men, then? Where are our blackmailers? I'm in the mood to shoot something."

Mycroft gives his brother a look. "You'll not shoot a _thing_ , Sherlock."

"I will if I want."

"You haven't got a gun."

"I'll _acquire_ one."

Mycroft presses a hand against the back of Sherlock's neck, right where it's sweaty and warm, right where there's proof he's still alive, still all right, still the little boy with a missing tooth, with a jar of live butterflies.

_What a small little thing. A small little unprotected thing. A dangerous thing._

"You're not wrong," he murmurs, moving his hand away and dropping it before it has a chance to smooth back his baby brother's hair [still dark and curly and far too unruly]. "Caring is not an advantage."

_What a small little thing. A ten stone weight. Hands clasped like a prayer around Mycroft's neck._

......…..

_**thirty-four.**_

And then.

 _And then_.

....

On their first night together, John Watson shoots and kills a murderer. He's a crack shot, military trained, has a strong moral compass and nerves of steel.

He shoots the man for Sherlock.

....

"You're _completely_ mad," John says one evening, six months in, grasping a metal pipe as he slides along a rain-slicked tin roof after Sherlock. " _Completely_ , utterly," his breath falls out of him, "mad."

"You're here, aren't you?" Sherlock asks, leaping over a four-foot-wide gap between roofs and landing with a far-too-graceful, far-too-dignified roll that hardly rumples his Belstaff coat.

John follows, the nature of his landing the exact opposite of Sherlock's, all pained grunts and slides and an awkward _smack_. 

"Oh, I know I'm mad," he says, grumbling as he pushes himself into a standing position and stretches out his back. "I've got to be."

Sherlock smiles at him, then, in the dark, in the cold, in the drizzling rain. He doesn't know why he smiles, really, other than because he's mad and John Watson's mad, too, and it's all right because it's them, _both_ , not "you," not "Sherlock," not "him". They're an "us."

They're an _us_.

"What're you smiling about?" John asks, moving in closer, feet crunching against the gravelly roof.

Sherlock shrugs and turns away. "If we go through that window," he points towards the left, "we should be able to make it into the gymnasium." He pauses. "Some lock-breaking may be required. Up for it?"

John sighs, a small smile forming. "I think we've already established that I'm mad."

Sherlock looks at him.

"Lead the way."

....

_That thing you did. That you, um, offered to do. That was…uh…good._

"It was, you know," Sherlock says to the ceiling, hands steepled under his chin, body straight, stretched along the sofa.

"It was what?" John's at the computer, fingers pecking away as he types up "The Great Game" [Oh, _hell._ ]. "It?"

"Good. The thing."

"What was? The thing? What thing?"

Sherlock sighs, exasperated, and drops his hands to his chest. _Really_ , John. What _is_ it like for one's brain to simply--

"Oh."

 _Good_ , John.

"Yes. Well." The sound of John's pecking stops. "You would have done the same."

He would have, wouldn't he? Surely, he would have. The thought of it twists up his guts, strings them about, presses at his heart a bit until it stutters.

John Watson.

_John Watson._

They're stupid, nearly frightening, the thoughts he has sometimes, the thoughts of John Watson. _John Watson_. 

He'd shoot Moriarty cleanly through the eye, would throw himself on an exploding bomb, he thinks, would rip out the throat of the man who laid a hand on him. He would. He really would. That's not sentiment. That's cold, honest reality. That's logic.

John's already done it. Shot a man. Killed a man. Wore a bomb. Offered to die.

For Sherlock. Sherlock Holmes.

That's not sentiment, either. That's blind loyalty.

[Or is it sentiment? John's sentimental, admittedly so. He's got girlfriends and he smiles at children and carries in his wallet a photograph of his dead mother. He has nightmares that leave him crying, and he cooks Sherlock eggy bread on Saturday mornings because he knows he quite likes it sometimes, and he keeps birthday and Christmas cards in a shoebox under his bed. 

Could it be sentiment? What if it's sentiment? What does it _mean_? Is it all right that it is, if it is, indeed, sentiment? Should Sherlock ask? Should he just _know_? Is one meant to understand sentimental intentions like one understands a slap to the face?

_"What is love?"_

_"Complicated."_ ]

....

"Can I ask you something?" John asks one morning, folding up his paper and smiling like he does when he attempts a "mate-to-mate" talk, when he tries to treat Sherlock like he treats Stamford and Lestrade when they're at the pub surrounded by pints and televised football games [ _Dull_.]

Sherlock heaves a great sigh. "Can I stop you?"

"You don't have to answer, all right? Just tell me to shut up and I will."

"Out with it."

John presses his index finger to his lips for a moment, as if about to shush a child, and then draws his hand up and cups his chin. Strokes at his overnight beard growth. "Have you ever slept with anyone?"

Sherlock snatches up John's neglected newspaper and shakes it open. "You're asking if I'm a virgin."

"Well. Yes, I suppose." John's cheeks colour, and he begins to root around on the table, picking up papers, napkins, searching for what? _Oh_ , a spoon to crack his egg.

Sherlock raises the paper before him, concealing his face, and says, "It depends entirely on your definition of such a term."

"Sex. Have you ever had sex?"

"Yes."

"All right, then."

Sherlock hears the egg crack.

[Why does it matter? Why does John want to know whether Sherlock's ever engaged in sexual activity? Is it _really_ that important? Does it mean something that Sherlock's been naked in a bed with another person, that he's touched, been touched, that he's had foreign semen on his skin? 

Does John think sex means sentiment, and therefore, if Sherlock's had sex, he's capable of such a wholly illogical, impractical emotion? If so, he's entirely wrong. Sherlock cared nothing at all about Victor Trevor, of course, about the sex they had, about their kisses. Honestly, it was an altogether distasteful period of his life, his university years, and he prefers not to think of it. What good would it do?]

....

_Sex has proved time and time again to be messy and unsanitary and distracting and downright **tedious** , ultimately unsatisfactory and detrimental to all parties involved, resulting in ~~sexually transmitted diseases~~ , ~~unwanted pregnancy~~ , guilt, false attachment and illusions of ~~_love and_~~ sentiment. ~~, which leads to ~~Stuart Harris~~ Victor Trevor getting off with ~~Subjects A-E~~ Sebastian Wilkes and ~~Tori~~~~ Sherlock Holmes_ is _~~weeping to Sherlock in the middle of London in the middle of a horrible cafe, paying five pounds to hear what she knows already because maybe, _maybe_ it isn't true, maybe, _maybe_ love prevails, maybe it's real, maybe the sex meant something~~ ~~becoming angry with himself, thinking himself mad, even, hating that he'd thought he was maybe, possibly, wrong, that he'd gotten lost, that he'd been an idiot, that he should have known better because he was right, after all, because he's~~ always right. Because sex, because sentiment, _ because love _is_

_Stupid, so very stupid. **Illogical** , even. _

[Isn't it?] 

....

"Of course they gave us this room," John says, having opened the door to reveal a large, very singular, bed.

"It's fine, John. I doubt I'll sleep." Sherlock saunters in, stifling a yawn, and drops his bag on a chair.

"Of course you'll sleep. You've been going for days, now." John sets down his own things by the wardrobe and toes off his shoes. "You've got to take care of yourself, you know. You're only human."

" _Yes_ ," Sherlock says, as if that's his fatal flaw.

They settle down together less than an hour later, showered and pyjama'd and _exhausted_. John is a warm weight on the other side of the bed, a constant reminder.

_They're an us._

....

 _What if I touch him a little?_ Sherlock wonders upon waking later on to find himself close, extraordinarily close, to John, just a breath away. 

[What if he does? What if he places fingertips against John's hip? Can he? Does he want to? _Why_ does he want to?]

_Does he want to? Why does he want to?_

....

"You're hot," John mumbles the next morning, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. " _Oh, god_. Temperature-wise, I mean. Warm. This bed's roasting." He laughs, and he looks so tired, still.

Sherlock rolls his eyes at him and pulls the covers over his head.

"My sister had a dog once. Massive thing. He used to..."

_John Watson: striped shirt, grey bottoms, sliver of navy blue pants peeking out from his waistband, curled up a bit under the covers, on his side, knees bent, feet bare--small feet, chubby toes. Warm. Very warm._

"…and he had made this _unearthly_ sound, like…"

_John Watson: belly a bit pudgy from this angle, soft, but arms strong._

"…remind me of him sometimes. I haven't a clue w-- Are you actually listening? Have you gone back to sleep?"

Sherlock's stomach twists when John sticks his head under the covers and looks at him.

"Hello," Sherlock says, stupidly, because it's the only thing he can think to say.

John gives him a look, an _I know you weren't listening, you git_ look, but smiles. "Hello."

[What if he… Oh, _god_ , he couldn't _possibly_ … Why would he want to…

_Does he want to? Why does he want to?_

Why is… Why does…?]

John places his hand on Sherlock's abdomen, fingers splayed out over his T-shirt.

[ _Does he want to? Why does he want to?_ ]

[ _"What turns you on?"_ ]

[ _"What is love?"_

 _"Complicated."_ ]

[ _ **Illogical** , even._]

"Is this okay?" John asks, stroking the flat of his palm up and down the centre of Sherlock's torso.

Sherlock's breath is a start-stop-stutter.

"Yes," he says, placing his own hand on top of John's. Oh, god. " _Yes_."

….

_What if he places fingertips against John's hip? Can he? Does he want to? _Why_ does he want to?_

Sherlock hasn't kissed anyone in nearly fourteen years, hasn't wanted to, has never once, in all this time, imagined what it would be like to kiss someone.

If he doesn't kiss John Watson, he thinks he may commit a murder, may kill everyone in the bed and breakfast with bare, bloody hands.

"How can you breathe under here? It's like a heat…"

_Lips: thin, upturned, smooth (Nivea balm, blue tube, jacket pocket).]_

….

"You're not listening, again."

Sherlock shakes his head. "No. I'm not."

….

He makes a sound when he kisses him [a _sound_ ], a cross between a whine and a sigh, and his cheeks colour at the thought, at the fact that he's done such a thing, such an undignified thing.

Sherlock's on his hands and knees [When did this happen? When did he move?], bent over John, head tilted, mouth open and seeking and _wet_ , _kissing_.

"John," he says, pulling back, then moving forward again. "John."

[John. John. John.]

_Why does he want to?_

He feels palms against the sides of his head, fingers parting around his ears, feels a pressure, a pull, and then…

And then.

 _And then_.

"It's really too hot under here," John murmurs, angling his head, claiming another kiss, and another, breath hot and damp and tongue hotter, damper. "Jesus."

Sherlock straddles John's waist, getting closer, always closer, please, please. He's not going to have _sex_ with him [Is he? _Does he want to?_ What if he wants to? _Why does he want to?_ ], it's just…

It's just.

" _God_ , I've wanted. to. do this for. ages," John says, voice a wet muffle against lips and tongue. "Here, let me…" He moves a hand up, tugging at the covers, pulling them down.

Sherlock grabs them from his grip. 

"No," he says against John's stubbly cheek. "No." He pulls them up and around them more tightly, trapping them in a hot, wet cocoon.

 _Yes_.

[ _"What turns you on?_ "]

....

"Tell me about your first time," John says, moving his hands up under the back of Sherlock's T-shirt. 

They're back at Baker Street, and it's weeks later, and the sofa is still quite comfortable with John stretched out on it, too.

"If you want to, of course." John smiles, kisses. "I'll tell you about mine."

Sherlock sighs into John's kiss, opens his mouth. John doesn't need to tell Sherlock about his. He can deduce it in seconds.

[Sixteen. Manual stimulation in the backseat of a car. Very quick.]

"How old. were you?" John asks.

"Deduce."

John snorts, kisses, but pulls back. He sighs. "Guess, you mean?"

" _Deduce_."

"My deductions are guesses." John strokes his chin, thinking. "You were… _hmm_. Eighteen?" 

"Twenty."

John smiles at him, then, and it looks tender, kind. "Twenty, then. So, university."

" _Good_."

"And it was with a man."

"Mm."

"And you must have really liked him."

[False.]

Sherlock lowers his eyebrows. "Why?"

John shrugs. "You were twenty, and it probably wasn't a 'get it over with' shag, as you'd have done it earlier if you were that concerned about it."

"It could have been an experiment."

"But it wasn't."

"Why do you think that?"

John slides his arm back under Sherlock's T-shirt. "Flawed data. First times are too messy."

[And second, third, forth, fifth, and sixth times?]

"Maybe it was for practice," Sherlock says defiantly, watching John's face. "The gathering of experience so as to ensure reliable data collection at a later date."

John smiles at him, a slow, gentle, sad smile. "Maybe," he says, kisses. "Maybe so."

....

"You're going to be disappointed," Sherlock murmurs, looking up at John, who's a step above him, grasping his hands and tugging.

_Sex has proved time and time again to be messy and unsanitary and distracting and downright **tedious** , ultimately unsatisfactory and detrimental to all parties involved._

"Never," John replies, tugging harder. "Why would I be disappointed?" He pauses for a moment and presses his lips together. "If you're…" Licks his lips. "It's fine, you know, if you're not very…"

Sherlock rolls his eyes dramatically and pulls his hands from John's grip. "For _godssake_ , it's not _that_." 

[He's got _a normal human body with what he's determined to be average proportions, amounts of hair, and muscle definition._ ]

"What is it, then? Why would I be disappointed?"

[Why wouldn't he be?]

"Nothing," Sherlock says, placing his palms against John's chest. He gives a little press. "Let's go."

....

"Whatever it is," John says, kissing down Sherlock's abdomen, stroking at his clothed hip, "it won't matter."

"Why won't it?" Sherlock takes John by the head and tugs him upward. 

[He thinks it won't matter, but it will. Of course it will.]

"Because you're…amazing."

Sherlock sighs a little at that [by total accident], and his chest feels tight, suddenly, as if all the air has left him.

"John Watson," he says, breathless.

"Sherlock Holmes."

 _They're an us_.

....

John's body is just about the warmest thing Sherlock's ever felt. His skin seems to burn, heat radiating from within, and it comforts Sherlock like an electric blanket when it drapes across him, when it wraps around him, when all the soft, sensitive points of John's body touch the soft, sensitive points of his.

"Look at you," John whispers, pressing his forehead to Sherlock's. "Look at you."

"What?" Sherlock asks, confused, warm, sweaty [already?].

"Gorgeous."

He feels so utterly stupid, so embarrassed, but he gasps a bit, and his stomach lurches, and he just… He closes his eyes and kisses and pulls his knees up and… And…

And then.

_And then._

....

"I have trouble," Sherlock hums later, pressing his face into John's neck and breathing a great burst of air against his skin, right by his ear, right where it's warmest and sweatiest. 

John's hands span his backside, press against him, pull him closer.

_Penis: fully erect, pressing against Sherlock's [fully erect], glans likely exposed, foreskin pulled back, wet-tipped [not just sweat]._

_Pubic hair: untrimmed, coarse, warm, sweaty._

_Yes, yes, yes, yes…_

"Trouble with what?" John asks, bringing his legs up and pressing his heels, for only the briefest of moments, against Sherlock's lower back.

"Coming during sex." He sucks at John's neck before pulling back, pushing up on his elbows and looking down into his face. Heat pools in his groin. _John Watson_. "Maybe."

"Are you…all right?" John breathes, pulling him back down, taking him by the hips and grinding the two of them together. "Is it--"

"No, it's… I'm capable." He breaks off into a sigh.

"Have you ever…? With someone." Long, slow grind.

"No."

"Okay," John says, stroking his fingers down Sherlock's back. "Okay."

....

John rubs the lube between his palms, warming it up, before taking the two of them in hand, before stroking slowly, so very slowly, up and down, up and down.

Sherlock's breath comes in a pant, and he just wants to… Wants to touch John Watson all over, wants to bite him and taste him and crawl inside him. Wants to lick at the shells of his ears, wants to kiss him breathless.

"Feel good?" John asks, pulling Sherlock down, kissing his jaw, his neck. His strokes speed.

"Yes." He says it again. "Yes."

....

_Sex has_ once _proved ~~time and time again~~ to be messy and unsanitary and distracting and ~~downright **tedious** , ultimately unsatisfactory and detrimental to all parties involved~~ _very, very good. 

"John," Sherlock says, feeling something, a warmth beginning to spread, something _more_. He breathes out, and with his breath comes a sound, a tone, a note, and it makes his cheeks colour, makes him feel flushed all over. [Was that a moan? Did he moan?]

" _God_ , look at you," John whispers, twisting his wrist, working the two of them at a different angle.

"What?" [ _Tell me. Please. Please, please tell me._ ]

"Gorgeous. _Mmm_ so…so…" John groans, and Sherlock feels a rush of pre-ejaculate drizzle out of him, just at the sound, at the sight of it.

"I feel you there. You're wet."

Sherlock bites his lip until he tastes blood.

"You're so…wet, Sherlock," John says, looking up at him, stroking, stroking, stroking. "Hard and wet. And warm."

"John. JohnJohn."

"We're close. We're…"

We.

_They're an us._

....

He says, "I can't. _Oh_ , I can't…" but what he means is, "I can," "I am," "I'm going to," and then there's a flood, a purge, white noise, and he thinks he's biting at John's shoulder, and he may be sobbing, and it's so, so very unsanitary, so, so very undignified, how he comes on John's belly, how John comes, too, how a puddle of sticky, milky fluid [John's, Sherlock's, both of theirs] forms above John's navel, and how Sherlock lies in it, smearing it about as he presses kisses to John's cheeks, his lips, as he breathes and coughs and says, "God," and "John," and "Oh."

....

_Could it be sentiment? What if it's sentiment? What does it **mean**? Is it all right that it is, if it is, indeed, sentiment? Should Sherlock ask? Should he just **know**? Is one meant to understand sentimental intentions like one understands a ~~slap~~ _ kiss to the _~~face~~_ forehead? 

_["What is love?"_

_"Complicated."]_

....

Endorphins. Calm. Euphoria. Affection.

So much affection.

"You're brilliant," John says, shifting them around so that they're on their sides, facing each other, sticky and gross and warm and fine. Fantastic.

[Is he? He is, but _is he_?]

"You're…" Sherlock pauses. "Unexpected."

John smirks. "The greatest of compliments."

[It is, though; it really is. Sherlock expects everything, doesn't he?]

He tells John this in a slow exhale.

John kisses him, soft and sweet.

_Could it be ~~sentiment~~ _ love _? What if it's ~~sentiment~~_ love _? What does it **mean**? Is it all right that it is, if it is, indeed, ~~sentiment~~ _ love _? Should Sherlock ask? Should he just **know**?_

....

"I want to make you eggy bread," John says, stretching and grimacing at the [slightly embarrassing] amount of dried semen on his belly.

Sherlock smiles [ _smiles_ ]. "It's Tuesday." A beat. "And it's midnight."

"Perfect."

"Why's it perfect?"

"It's unexpected."

....

_They're stupid, nearly frightening, the thoughts he has sometimes, the thoughts of John Watson. **John Watson**. _

_He'd shoot Moriarty cleanly through the eye, would throw himself on an exploding bomb, he thinks, would rip out the throat of the man who laid a hand on him. He would. He really would. ~~That's not sentiment~~. That's cold, honest reality. That's logic._

He'd also eat eggy bread every night if it meant _this_ , if it meant horrible late-night telly and John's small feet and chubby toes on the coffee table and a hand in his curls. _He would. He really would._

_Could it be ~~sentiment~~ love? What if it's ~~sentiment~~ love? What does it **mean**? Is it all right that it is, if it is, indeed, ~~sentiment~~ love? ~~Should~~ _ Does _Sherlock_ need to _ask? ~~Should he just~~_ Does he already _**know**?_

_"What is love?"_

_~~"Complicated."~~_ Unexpected. 

_~~_**Illogical** , even._ ~~ _


End file.
